Author Guidelines

General

If you are an author of a scholarly book or work of reference for the academic or general readership markets, then we may be able to consider it for publication. However, you should read the following before getting in touch with us. If you do wish to submit a proposal for a book to us, then please use our New Book Proposal Form, which can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

Please note that we are not accepting submissions for children's books at the current time.

An Outline of Our Policy

We publish up to fifty books a year, but for each one that we publish we are offered a great many that we cannot take on. Many we reject simply because there is a limit to the number we can take on, but others are rejected either because of their presentation or because they are unsuitable in subject matter.

In particular we do not publish and cannot consider:

Fiction (novels or short stories) for the adult market

Cookery books

Drama or poetry

However, please note that we have cut back on our children's titles, and we would ask authors not to send us unsolicited typescripts for children's books.

Sending Your Typescript

Rather than sending your complete typescript in the first instance, it is usually better to post us a synopsis of the book, with a detailed contents list and a sample chapter or two. This will save you money, and may well save both you and us time, whether the book is one that we can publish or not.

If you send us your typescript, we will only be able to return it to you if you send us postage (British postal stamps or international reply paid coupons) to do so. We can in any case take no liability for lost typescripts or material, so please do not send us valuable photos or original artwork.

We often have to reject books that might otherwise be suitable because they are presented in a form that makes reading them too difficult. If you are in any doubt about how to present a typescript you should look in an author's guide for suggestions on how to do so. We cannot, for example, consider handwritten books, books presented on disk without a print-out, or books printed out on continuous stationery. And furthermore, please DO NOT submit typescripts by email, although we do welcome email enquiries.

The Market for Your Book

We are a commercial publishing house and we have to make a profit from the books that we publish. However good your book is we will be unable to publish it unless we can see how we will be able to sell it, and so it is vital that you tell us about the potential market for your book, and about how it may be reached. The more that you can tell us about this, the easier it will be for us to consider your book favourably.

The most successful publishing is the result of close co-operation between author and publisher, and so we need to know what you will be doing to help us promote and sell the book. Will you be speaking at conferences or in the broadcast media about the subject to promote the book? Will you help build up interest by writing articles? Do you have a website which attracts visitors to whom you can try to sell the book? If so, please ensure that you include this information when completing our proposal form; doing so will make a great difference.

In some cases where we think a book is worth publishing, but cannot see enough market potential to make a profit, we may offer to publish the book but ask for a subvention towards the costs of publishing it.

New Book Proposal Form

Prospective authors can download a copy of our New Book Proposal Form below. Please use the form to provide the requested details of your book and of its intended market. The file is in Rich Text format, which can be edited in any word-processor.